Found
by i-love-svu
Summary: Lady Heather's grandchild is found and Grissom leads the case. Can the two reconcile to find Zoe's killer together? Or will it all end in yet another tragedy? Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own CSI.**

**Author's Note: I wanted to do something different for my 50th fanfic (yay!) so I'm trying my hand at diving into the forensics part of it. Hopefully this won't be a letdown...

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The infant stared up at the large man before her, and he stared right back. She was tiny, with pink little cheeks and a look in her eye that said she wasn't your average baby. Captain Jim Brass grunted softly as he lifted her out of her car seat and cradled her in his arms.

"Let's go find your mommy, kiddo." She cooed happily as Brass carried her back to his vehicle. Upon reaching the car and safely placing the baby upon the back seat, out of the desert heat, he signaled back to the police officers to now conduct their search. Brass watched intently as the men explored the vehicle that the baby had been found in. It was an old car with paint that had been eaten away and replaced by rust, flat tires and broken windows. He had received an anonymous call about a baby being abandoned in the desert and didn't take the person seriously at first. Now, glancing down at the baby girl lying on the leather interior of his SUV, the detective was glad he had followed his instincts and went out to find the infant.

"Captain! You might want to see this…" An officer motioned for the older man to join him at the trunk of the vehicle. Brass instructed the officer closet to him to watch the child while he went to check out what was going on with the first officer.

"What'd you find?" Brass' gruff voice filled the silence. As he peered into the trunk, he suddenly knew that it was going to be a very long day.

A body, its gender unidentifiable, was in the trunk. And as Brass furrowed his brows and took a step closer, he saw that the body had been decapitated.

"Great," He sighed and pulled out his cell phone. "Just the way I wanted to start my morning."


	2. Chapter 2

Gil Grissom parked his SUV alongside the yellow police tape and opened the car door to be greeted by the usual Vegas heat. He puts his black sunglasses on, protection from the sun, and strode toward his colleague.

"Jim. What'd you find?" 

The detective slowly turned around with a wry smile. "You're going to love this one."

Even through the darkness of his shades, Gil could clearly see the scene before him. He studied it carefully before saying anything; taking in every detail he could from the stench of the decomposing flesh to the dried blood surrounding the body. He took a step closer or a step backward when necessary, which was all part of his observation process. Brass, both a coworker and friend, knew this and allowed the Entomologist to complete his routine without interruption. Finally, only after looking at the body for nearly an hour, Gil spoke.

"How did you find out about this?"

"An anonymous caller. I didn't believe him at first, but I'm sure glad I did."

Gil raised one brow, interested by the last fragment of the detective's sentence. With exchanging words Brass knew that Gil would want to know what he meant.

"There was a baby in the car. Not in the trunk, thankfully. In a car seat in the front. Children services came to get her and they're trying to find her family as we speak." Brass paused, trying to remember if he had left anything out. Realizing that he hadn't, he decided to let Gil get back to his job. "Well, carry on. I'll let you know if they find her family or not." 

As the detective departed, Gil got the distinct impression that he knew something and wasn't sharing it. With a shrug, the Entomologist began snapping pictures of the crime scene and pushed the thought to the back of his mind.


	3. Chapter 3

She cradled the child in her arms with the experience one comes to expect from a woman. With loving eyes, she cooed softly to the infant and frequently smiled at the tiny bundle in her arms. Captain Brass, without realizing it, was smiling right along with her.

"Something amusing, Captain Brass?" The woman inquired without looking up. She continued her task of keeping the baby calm and did so without any problems.

"No. You're just very good… at that." He watched as she gave the baby her index finger to hold onto. "I suppose that comes from raising your daughter?" 

At the mention of that, the woman raised her head. Through electrifying green eyes she stared at the detective, tears building up as the moments ticked past. Finally, she looked away and simply stated, "Yes." 

Brass felt bad for upsetting her. He hadn't meant his words to hurt her in anyway but somehow, it had come across differently that intended.

"How much longer do you think this is going to take?" She inquired as the child in her arms began to fuss.

The detective checked his watch. "As soon as the paperwork clears, you may take her home. I'll go see what the hold-up is."

He exited the office without another word, leaving the woman and the infant sitting in a welcome silence. Down the hall, Gil was walking toward Brass' office to discuss the case. A mere three feet from the room he was headed for, Gil stopped dead in his tracks. A woman with glossy brunette hair was seated in the office, and was completely focused on something in her arms. Gil took a minute to observe the woman, not wanting to jump to conclusions, when a thought struck him.

"Is the holding the baby?" He wondered out loud. Before Gil could mentally examine her any longer, Brass walked into the office and said a few words. The woman gathered her things but still managed to hold the infant securely in her arms. She thanked the Captain as she departed, giving Gil a chance to hear her voice. He correctly identified the woman right away and was glad that she hadn't seen him. She had been too busy with her grandchild.

Brass joined Gil in the hall, a quiet sigh breaking the silence. "You do realize who that was, don't you?"

"Yes," Gil nodded slowly. "Lady Heather."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: Thank you so much for the reviews! I hope you'll enjoy this chapter as much as the others.

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Brass nodded, glancing around to see who else had seen the dominatrix. "And her granddaughter."

"The baby in the desert…?"

The detective pinched the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and thumb. With a sigh, he opened his eyes but focused them on the tiled floor.

"As if her family hasn't been through enough."

Gil silently agreed with the man standing to his right. As he looked up, he caught a very brief glance of Lady Heather disappearing around the corner.

"Does she have a car seat?" The salt-and-pepper haired man inquired. "For the baby, I mean."

Brass furrowed his brows as he attempted to follow the Entomologist's train of thought. "I'm not sure. I believe she had someone coming to pick her up, and they had purchased one on the way."

"Oh." Gil released the breath he had been holding. Regaining his concentration on the case, he strode into Brass' office so the two of them could discuss the latest developments.

"Anything on the victim?"

The detective sat down his the chair behind his desk before answering. He contemplated his answered, deciding what information would be useful and what wouldn't. "Vic's name is David Walker. He was a therapist and was here on vacation. How nice, huh? Come for the slots and get whacked."

Gil nodded, a small grin appearing on his face. "Anything else?"

"Nothing on my part."

"I'm running the DNA from the baby against David's," Gil informed Brass. Upon seeing the detective's questioning look, he went with an explanation. "Just a gut feeling I had. Sometime's they're the ones you need to listen to."

Brass shook his head in agreement as he opened the small notebook that was lying on his desk. He studied the contents of one page before giving Gil any indication of what he was reading.

"You're thinking that the dead guy is the baby's father?" The detective asked, not looking up from the book before him.

"I think that's a fair assumption, don't you?" Gil retorted. "And it's not hurting anyone to run the DNA."

Brass held up his hands in surrender. "No need to get defense."

"I'll let you know what I find," Gil said to the detective as he exited the office. Although the tension that came with finding a child abandoned in the middle of no where had vanished, Gil still didn't feel at ease. He would have to talk to Heather soon, just to follow routine, but was looking forward to it. She had wanted to find her grandchild and now she had. Maybe, he thought, now she can finally get some rest.

Inside his office, Gil found a note on his desk. He opened it and started down at the paper. In the handwriting he had seen a number of times before, a note had been carefully jotted. It read the following:

_Mr. Grissom, I trust you will need to speak with me. Over tea, at my dominion, perhaps? I'd prefer not to leave my granddaughter if possible, but if you need me to revisit the crime lab, I understand. You know how to contact me._

_Yours,_

_Heather_

The Entomologist read and reread the note several times before placing it back on his desk. With a sigh, Gil walked out of his office and headed for the DNA lab. Before contacting the dominatrix, he needed to check the progress of the test he had ordered just a few hours earlier.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: Thanks for the reviews! Sorry I didn't get this chapter posted sooner. Let me know what you think, please.

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"Lady Heather, you have a visitor," a girl as tall as Gil greeted the dominatrix as the two strode into the sun room. Her accent was as thick as molasses and Gil found that he was unable to identify it. The young woman exited the room with a smile, which he quickly returned, not wanting to seem rude.

"Heather, good afternoon." He finally met the brunette's gaze and it slowly drifted off to the left. On the iron legged table sat her grandchild's car seat. The handle bar had been folded back in order to give both the adult and the baby unblocked views of each other. As he neared the two, Gil saw that the baby was sleeping.

The brunette smiled up at Gil and he noticed something different about her almost immediately. Oddly enough, she didn't look tired or depressed, both of which she had during their last meeting. She looked happy and it made Gil grin back at her.

"How are you today?" He inquired as he quietly joined her at the table.

Heather gestured to her throat with her right hand and her soft reply soon followed. "I have a horrible sore throat and it's painful to talk. Is there something you need help with in your investigation?"

The Entomologist pursed his lips, a well-known "Grissom" look. He didn't want to upset her or wake the baby, so he gestured for her to follow him. Thankfully, Heather complied without any arguments or questions. Gil led her the room next to the sun room so they could talk and she could still keep an eye on the baby.

"We have some information on the man that was found in the car with your granddaughter," Gil whispered. He saw the sparks flicker in the brunette's green eyes and hoped she would take the next bit of news without any major problems. "He was the baby's father."

He watched silently as Heather's jaw tightened to the point where Gil was sure she was going to fracture a tooth. After a very long moment, she swallowed and gently pressed her right hand to her throat.

"How do you know?" Her voice cracked at the end of the sentence and Gil couldn't imagine what was going through her mind.

Gil tenderly took the shocked woman's arm and guided her to sit in the chair that was placed in the hallway where they were standing. He feared that she would faint, but once seated, Heather's color began to return to her cheeks and she waited patiently for Gil to continue.

"We had to extract some DNA from the baby to run through the database to see if we could locate the parents. Then we ran the DNA from the male who was found in the trunk but nothing came up. So, on an impulse, I decided just to compare the two samples. Our lab tech confirmed and reconfirmed it."

With a tenderness he did not know that he possessed, Gil knelt down next to the chair and took Heather's hand. As they sat there in the silence, basking in the information that had just been released, the brunette spoke softer than ever before.

"My granddaughter is just two months old, she has not a mark upon her and both of her parents are dead?" She paused, nearly ready to break down. "Gil, will you excuse me, please."

Her sentence was not a question, it was a statement. As she stood and departed from the room, Gil watched from the hallway. Heather gently picked her sleeping granddaughter up and cradled her against her shoulder. She slowly sank into the chair by the table holding the infant's car seat and as quietly as humanly possible, the brunette began to cry.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: Thanks so much for the reviews!

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Gil couldn't get that image out of his mind for the rest of the day. Heather gently cradling her grandchild as she sobbed was almost more than he could handle. He stood there in the doorway for a little while until the brunette realized that he hadn't left. She composed herself as quickly as possibly. They made no eye contact at all as Heather carried the child out of the room and up the stairs. Gil considered following her, but decided against it.

Now sitting in his office, thoroughly contemplating the afternoon, he wasn't so sure that his decision had been the correct one. Should he really have left her there alone when she was obviously going through a rough time? Everything seemed to be going wrong for the woman and Gil didn't know why, but he felt partially responsible.

"Gil, come with me."

The Entomologist looked up at the sound of the voice. Standing in the doorway, strawberry-blond Catherine Willows had in impatient look carved into her features. She looked both pissed off and excited about something, but Gil couldn't decipher what that "something" was.

"Did you hear me?" She asked with a sigh. "Let's go. You need to see this."

With questioning the already fuming woman, Gil obediently walked around his desk. He followed her to the audio-visual lab to find Nick and Archie sitting in front of the enormous computer screen. They both looked up at their boss as he entered, each very pale.

"You ready for this?" Archie asked quietly, unsure of how the video they had found would affect the man.

"Play it." Gil commanded instantly. Catherine nodded to the two men behind Gil's back and the video began playing.

A intellectual man appeared on the screen, his black rimmed glasses perched on his nose as if they had been there his entire life. Gil identified the man at once as Leon Sneller, the man Heather had severely whipped after finding out that he had been the last one to see Zoe alive. As the man started speaking, the salt and pepper gray haired man listened intently.

"Zoe tried to escape several times. I'll admit, she was the biggest challenge I had. I figured she'd learn her lesson if I chained her in the basement. Let's just say it didn't work." Sneller adjusted his glasses and Gil felt his rage toward the man growing by the second. He knew exactly what the man meant by his last sentence. Zoe had become so panicked that she chewed her own hand off. Gil wasn't one to be sick at such things, but knowing that the girl who had been so brutally murdered was Heather's daughter, it made the bile rise in his throat.

"Is that the end of the video?" Gil asked, wearily slid his fingers under his glasses and rubbed his tired blue eyes.

Nick shook his head sadly. "No."

A moment later Snell opened his mouth to speak and only one thing came out. "She deserved every bit of what she got."

Gil swallowed as he realized the three other people in the room were staring intently at him. Catherine was the first to speak, as always, and the Entomologist was glad for that. Whether she knew it or not, Catherine could always say the right thing.

"Are you okay?" When he finally nodded to signal that he was, she continued. "We figured you'd want to see that. No doubt that he's the killer, not in my eyes."

With a heavy sigh, Gil ran his hand over his face. "But we can't convict him. There isn't any physical evidence to link him to Zoe's murder."

Catherine shot him one of her famous death glares before refocusing her gaze back on the tiled floor. She understood where he was coming from, but couldn't he ever just rely on his instincts? Would that be so hard to do, just this once? She joined him with a sigh of her own.

Without any warning, Gil exited the room in a hurry and headed toward his office. The two CSIs and AV geek watched as the man retrieved something from his desk, then was gone again in a flash.

"Something's up," Catherine furrowed her brows. "He knows something that we don't."

After seeing Gil's odd behavior, she was sure that he had some inside information. And despite the fact that she was wracking her brain, trying to figure out what Gil was hiding, she couldn't. With a frustrated groan, Catherine sat in between Archie and Nick as they went back to analyzing the video. But even with the could-be confession playing before them, Catherine couldn't help but worry about Gil.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: I thought I posted this chapter before! Hmm. Well, here it is now. Final chapter. Let me know what you think, please and thank you.

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Gil knew it was a long shot, but he had to try. In his office, the aged CSI sat at his desk with the book from Sneller's home in front of him. He had scoured the book countless times and had found nothing that could be counted as evidence. But the book had been one of the few links between Sneller, the suspected killer, and Zoe. As much as it pained Gil to consider it, he was starting to think that maybe this was one case that just couldn't be solved.

With a sigh, Gil closed the book. Just as the massive log slammed shut, Catherine strode into his office with a grim expression. He had just seen her ten minutes ago, and that look had not been there. What could have happened in a matter of a few minutes that could change her so suddenly?

"I have bad news," The strawberry blond slowly said. She looked as though she were carefully contemplating how to tell Gil the news. From the look in her eyes, the male CSI prepared himself for the worst. "They found him half an hour ago. He's dead, Gil."

The Entomologist was confused at first. Who was this "he"? As he glanced up at Catherine, Gil realized who she meant.

"How?" He inquired. "What happened?"

Catherine sat down in the chair in front of Gil's desk. She played with the ring on her left hand as the words hesitantly left her lips. "He provoked his cell mate into beating him." The answer was simple and delivered softly, but it hit Gil like a punch.

This meant that since Zoe's killer was dead, justice could never be given to the grieving mother. The woman who was raising her deceased daughter's child. Gil took his glasses off and set them on top of Sneller's book.

"I can talk to her if you want," Catherine offered. She knew how hard it was for Gil to see Heather in the state she was in.

Gil shook his head. "I'll go," was his calm reply.

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Inside of his SUV, Gil wasn't looking forward to what he was about to do. He was parked outside of Lady Heather's House, staring up at the gothic structure with a dread he hadn't felt in a long time. Realizing that putting it off didn't make it any easier, Gil opened his car door and exited the vehicle.

The gravel crunched underneath of his feet the entire way to the front door of the massive house. The doorbell seemed to echo on forever, and didn't appear to cease until the door was opened.

Heather stood there in a black shirt and matching shirt, with a confused look on her face. As the two met eyes, she knew right away that something was wrong.

Gil furrowed his brows, hoping not to convey too much with one look. "Heather, I'm sorry," he whispered.

The brunette's hand rose to cover her mouth. A muffled sob was barely audible and Gil knew that Heather had caught on. He carefully took her arm, making sure his grip was firm but not too tight. Quickly and effortlessly, Gil led Heather to a stiff-backed iron chair. She sank into it with a shuddering sigh. Gil had seen her like this once before, and knew that the brunette was trying to keep her emotions hidden.

"Can I get you anything?"

Heather shook her head. She sat there with a look of disbelief and shock in her eyes. Gil took the chair next to the brunette, and allowed himself a moment of sympathy. It wasn't very often that Gil showed that he cared for someone, but he knew that this woman needed a shoulder to cry on. His arms wrapped around her shoulders, Heather buried her face in his chest and began sobbing.

Gil did his best to comfort her. He couldn't imagine the intensity of her pain. Her daughter had been tortured and murdered, her granddaughter had been missing for quite some time. And now the man who had caused it all was dead. All of Heather's hope for justice was crushed. As Gil's hand soothingly ran up and down her back, the two were upset for slightly different reasons. Gil's heart was breaking at the sight of the normally strong woman in his arms, her emotions on display for all to see. Heather was distressed because now the one thing she had wanted the most, justice for her daughter, would never arrive. And to a mother who has lost her daughter, nothing could be worse.


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